


and we both shine

by taykash



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25013794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taykash/pseuds/taykash
Summary: Linhardt just wants to nap against the sand in the warm sun, but 6-year-old Caspar finds him, bringing some originally unwanted but not unwelcome excitement into his life.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





	and we both shine

**Author's Note:**

> I dreamt about Linhardt as a mermaid last night and it turns out it was Caspar's birthday so this just ended up flowing out of me. Happy birthday, Caspar! You get to be the first person who gets a birthday fic from me for the first time in like five years!
> 
> No beta. Sorry, Glenn.
> 
> High potential that this might end up becoming a series! How exciting.

Linhardt swims away from his clutch as they played keep-away around the sea anemones. It wasn’t his first, second, or even third choice of game - he doesn’t like the sharp zap of pain when he comes in contact with an anemone, but he also literally never wants to speed around like that. So instead, he waits until a big school of fish swims through the reef where his clutch lives and takes the chance to hide among the fish to leave without getting caught.

All Linhardt wants is a nap, preferably somewhere in the sun.

Linhardt is still a child, small and vulnerable, but he doesn’t care about the dangers lurking in the water. He can perform some healing magic and he can be fast if he really had to, so he’s confident that he can be safe.

He finally arrives at the cove he’d found the last time he had gotten away. It isn’t a very big cove but it’s deserted and safe because it’s surrounded by a high wall of rock. At a certain hour of the morning, the sun angles perfectly to make it feel like a warm bowl of sunlight.

Linhardt hauls half of his small body onto the sand and tucks him into one of the corners of the rock wall. He keeps his bottom half in the water, mostly because the first time he tried to nap entirely on land, he woke up not long after severely dehydrated and with a pounding headache. His scales had lost their luster and it had taken him a few hours to feel normal again. 

The sun shines down on the sand and on Linhardt’s body as he stretches out luxuriously on the golden sand, his emerald tail gently swaying in the shallows. He can feel little fish flitting about around him.

He doesn’t feel like he’s slept all that long when he’s woken up by the crunch of sand beneath someone’s weight.

“Hey! How are you asleep over there? Aren’t you itchy?”

Linhardt sits up suddenly and retreats backwards into the water before looking at the person talking. It’s a boy about his age with blue hair that flops into his eyes. He doesn’t have a tail and instead is crouched on the sand in front of Linhardt on two skinny appendages.

 _Human_ , Linhardt thinks. He’s heard of them before, often in stories of wicked thieves and massive ships that sink into the sea, of bodies thrown into the water and sinking into the depths instead of swimming.

Linhardt just watches him warily, but the boy crouches closer every time Linhardt shuffles away. He doesn’t have gills on his neck the way Linhardt does, but instead just two smooth planes of skin. Linhardt wonders how it feels. He wants to reach out and touch him, but he remembers the warnings he’d been raised to abide: never go near humans. No one ever told him why, no matter how often he asked.

“I’m Caspar,” the boy offers with a toothy smile -- not so toothy after all because he’s missing a few teeth. They’re not pointy like Linhardt’s, instead rather flat. It makes Linhardt relax a little bit because those aren’t the teeth of a predator. Plus, he’s never heard of a human eating a merperson. 

“Linhardt,” he finally says, though he’s still tensed up and ready to flip back into the water if he has to.

Caspar’s face lights up even further, something Linhardt didn’t even realize was possible. “Hi, Linhardt!” Caspar’s voice is loud and clearer than almost anything Linhardt’s ever heard without the muffling properties of water. “Do you live around here?”

“Um...I guess you could say that.” Linhardt finally realizes that Caspar hasn’t noticed his tail. Linhardt’s dark green hair is long around his shoulders, so his gills probably aren’t visible. Does he just think Linhardt is a human boy laying in the ocean?

“I’m only here for the summer. My dad sent me here so I can get out of his hair.” Caspar plops down on the sand, both hands sifting and crunching through it. “I didn’t think there were other kids around here, though!”

“I don’t think there are many,” Linhardt says slowly. “But I wouldn’t know.”

“Don’t you explore?” Caspar’s eyes are big and bright blue and remind Linhardt a lot of the surface of the ocean when the sun hits it just right and it sparkles. There are shimmering flecks of color in Caspar’s eyes that change as he moves and Linhardt feels like he could watch those flecks forever.

“Not up here,” Linhardt admits and unconsciously slaps his tail in the water.

Oh, no.

He can see Caspar’s eyes widen to a level that would be almost comical if Linhardt wasn’t so scared.

“Whoa, what is that?!” Caspar scrambles to stand up but Linhardt shuffles back so far into the water only his eyes are poking out. 

“Don’t come near me,” Linhardt warns, but Caspar doesn’t listen.

Linhardt knows the dropoff from the shallows is a steep, sudden one, but he keeps drifting backwards, away from Caspar. He’s swimming now, the bottom of the ocean too far for his arms to reach.

Caspar’s up to his chest now. “Hey, wait a second! I just want to see your tail. You’re a mermaid, right?”

“I’m not a _maid_ ,” Linhardt says crossly, but that’s when Caspar steps off the drop and sinks like a rock.

The only time Linhardt’s seen something struggle the way Caspar does is when he saw a shark attack a wayward mermaid who had cut herself against some coral and failed to staunch the blood fast enough. He still had nightmares about it.

Caspar’s flailing and Linhardt moves before he even thinks about it. He ducks beneath the water and wraps his arms around Caspar’s chest, yanking him up even as Caspar’s arms beat him around the head and shoulders in his panic.

“Stop,” Linhardt grits, summoning all the strength in his small body to pull Caspar back up onto dry land.

Caspar spits up seawater all over himself and Linhardt, making Linhardt wrinkle his nose as he unceremoniously lets Caspar fall against the sand. Gross. 

“You saved me,” Caspar manages to choke out, his chest still heaving. There are holes poked into Caspar’s shirt where Linhardt’s claws had gotten caught.

“Well, I couldn’t just let you die,” Linhardt points out, smoothing down his hair from where Caspar’s flailing ruined it.

“That means we’re best friends now!” Caspar wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving sand all over his face, before grabbing Linhardt’s hand. It’s disgusting and makes Linhardt want to die a little, but the earnest look on Caspar’s face is keeping him rooted where he is.

Linhardt swallows hard. “You don’t know me,” he points out, but Caspar shakes his head.

“You’re Linhardt and you saved me!” he crows, a huge grin on his face. “I’ll come to play with you _every day_ now, okay?”

 _Please don’t,_ Linhardt thinks, but before he realizes it, Caspar’s hands are on the fins on either side of his head. Linhardt is still a child, so his fins are small. They’re green, like his hair, so they’re not easy to see when his head is out of the water. 

Caspar’s hands are gentle as he rubs his fingertips over Linhardt’s fins. Linhardt stays very still, his heart beating so fast he’s sure Caspar can hear it because they’re so close together.

“These are really cool,” Caspar breathes, making Linhardt’s nose wrinkle. Whatever Caspar had for lunch doesn’t smell so great. 

In retaliation, Linhardt raises his hands and touches Caspar’s ears. He can feel Caspar stiffen beneath his touch, but Linhardt is fascinated by the velvet smoothness of Caspar’s skin. His ears remind him of a shell with their twists and turns. 

“I don’t know what these are,” Linhardt says dryly, but he can feel his fingers tremble. His claws are still short but they can be sharp, so he has to be careful not to cut Caspar’s skin.

Caspar laughs and Linhardt feels the sound reverberate through his whole body. “They’re ears, silly! They’re for hearing.”

Linhardt hums in acknowledgment, letting his hands trace down to the smooth sides of Caspar’s neck. Caspar squirms, ticklish from Linhardt’s touch, but Linhardt ignores it. He’s fascinated. How does he _breathe_?

But his question doesn’t get answered. “Sir Caspar!” a faint voice calls, and Caspar stiffens, sitting straight up.

“Go,” Caspar hisses, pushing Linhardt back by the shoulders. “I’ll come back tomorrow. Will you come see me?”

Linhardt doesn’t know what’s going on, but he wants to know more about this strange human. He nods.

Caspar grins again. “Great! I’ll see you then.” He stands up and walks away, not bothering to dust himself off. Linhardt stays in the shallows, watching, but Caspar turns around and makes a shooing noise.

Linhardt nods in understanding and flips himself into the sea, suddenly gripped with the desire to zoom home and ask about human legends. What did the elders have to say about humans, again? He’d never cared enough to _really_ listen, not believing that he’d ever come in contact with a human. But now he needed to know.

He zooms back to his clutch, his fins still tingling from Caspar’s touches. Maybe he would get more of his questions answered tomorrow. He couldn’t wait.


End file.
